


illicit boyfriend-having

by fishscalesky



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: And yet, M/M, References to Homophobia, References to being outed, a little bit of a third wheel too, i regret everything but it was necessary, i’m sorry the Lupins didn’t react well, james is the supportive friend™️, mentions of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, our soft pure boys, talking about coming out, that didn’t go so well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:21:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27470392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishscalesky/pseuds/fishscalesky
Summary: Remus, after being outed at school, is kept at home by his parents while they “process” this. Frankly, Sirius isn’t letting anything stop him from seeing his boyfriend.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 105





	illicit boyfriend-having

“I can’t see,” James complained loudly from behind Sirius. 

Sirius smacked behind him without looking, resulting a yelp from James. “Shut it,” he hissed. “They might still be awake.”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” James grumbled, giving Sirius some space before following him through a gap in the hedge on the border of the Lupins’ property. 

Sirius was vibrating with anticipation and anxiety, and as a consequence he was on edge and easily ruffled. 

“You’re doing it because you love me,” Sirius replied without skipping a beat. 

“I’m sneaking around someone’s private property at eleven thirty p.m. on a Saturday night,” James rhapsodized in the voice of an oncoming monologue, stepping carefully and talking fervently. He always was stellarly gifted at multitasking, Sirius thought. “But hey, what’s not to like? This is _honestly_ the best possible use of my time I could have possibly come up wi-”

“Shh!” Sirius wrapped a firm hand around James’s wrist, effectively cutting him off. He pulled him behind the landscaping, a prickly, waxy-leaved bush. A yellow light was flicked on in what he assumed to be the kitchen window, but he didn’t see a figure through the distant glass. 

James breathed quietly next to him, matching his breath with Sirius’s, the way he’d done since they were kids whenever they found themselves in a sticky situation. Which was often. 

The light turned off after a few more moments and Sirius exhaled, a good bit shakier than before. But he wasn’t rattled enough to even consider turning back, hell no. 

“Why am I doing this,” James whispered. “Tell me again. Kinda need a reminder right about now. Hey, is this illegal?”

“You’re doing it because you love Remus,” Sirius returned, nervously combing a hand through his hair. “And we’re just _trespassing.”_

James sighed in the face of that irrefutable statement. “Fine. For Remus, trespassing, it’s all cool. Good. Great!”

Sirius stayed crouched for a few more seconds before swearing softly and inching out of its cover. _Fuck it, time to go._ James followed, casting nervous glances around them as he did so. 

“So what’s the plan?” James said through gritted teeth, eyes wide behind his glasses. 

“Get up to the house,” Sirius started, laying down his well-thought out plan that hadn’t really even existed until James asked what it was. Most of Sirius’s plans were like that. “Throw rocks at his window or text him, but come to think of it, his parents probably have his phone so that’s out.”

“So we’re planning to throw rocks at his window until he hears and comes,” James said around a sigh. “What in the modern-day Shakespeare is this?”

Sirius smiled. “He’d like that.”

James nodded and impulsively reached for Sirius’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “He’s okay,” he said gently and Sirius didn’t point out he really had no way of knowing that. 

Surprised to feel tears sting his eyes, Sirius sniffled in acknowledgment. “Yeah,” he said roughly, coughing a few times, which James tactfully didn’t mention. “As fine as he can be. That kind of environment is shit.”

“It is,” James agreed and left it at that. He squeezed Sirius’s hand, knowing how much he’d appreciate the steady support right then. He was getting disconcerting flashbacks to his own “coming out”, which had gone utterly disastrously. 

Sirius cleared his throat and dropped James’s hand. “Watch it, I’ll have you know I’m taken before you go putting moves on me,” he joked. 

James kept his laugh on low, but he gave Sirius a brief, tight hug. “Could I ever forget?”

“Better not,” Sirius threatened and refocused on the mission at hand. “Okay, what time is it?”

There was a moment of antsy silence while James checked the indi-glo screen of his watch. 

“Eleven forty-seven,” he said finally, glancing up, the faint light from his watch gleaming off his wire-rimmed glasses. “What time do the Lupins usually sleep?”

“Hell if I know,” Sirius said wearily. He glanced at the darkened house. “Let’s just go. We can plead insanity if we’re caught.”

“Looking forward for it!” James said faux brightly, but he was right on Sirius’s heels as they slipped across the dew-wet grass. 

Sirius stared hard at Remus’s dimly lit window, influencing him to appear through sheer force of will alone. 

Remus did not make a miraculous cameo at the window. 

“Nothing for it, lads,” James sighed, bending to scoop up and handful of gravel. He sprinkled some rocks into Sirius’s open palm, loosing a pent-up breath as he did so. “This feels more and more like a coming-of-age movie every minute.”

Sirius shushed him and picked out the smoothest pebble, taking a step back. Remus’s window was only about eight feet off the ground, but he had to hit perfectly. 

The stone pinged off the glass. Silence. Then the next rock hit. Again, zero acknowledgement. 

“How many d’you think?” James asked, winding up to toss another one. 

“Is he asleep?” Sirius stared hard at the dark window. 

“He better not be,” James replied. “I’m really looking forward to my role as stepping stone.”

“I’m not going _into_ his room,” Sirius said distantly, tossing another pebble, which missed and skittered off the gray blue siding. “S’too risky.”

“Wonderful!” James said cheerily. “Prolonged suffering!”

“Prongs, if it gets it be too much,” Sirius said, turning to catch James’s eye. “You‘ll tell me so I can let you down. This is entirely consensual, you know. All of this.”

“God you make it sound dirty,” James shuddered. 

“Fuck off.” Sirius flicked another stone, almost laughing at the sheer improbability of this scene. Never in a thousand years would he have ever seen himself here. Never in a _million_ years would he have imagined himself dating someone so lovely as Remus.

It wasn’t all candlelight kisses and roses. Remus was in, well, not _peril_ exactly, but certainly edging near dire straits. If Sirius wasn’t there when something like this happened, what kind of boyfriend was he? Remus needed him, he needed Remus. That was the only reason he could ever need to do anything. 

Just as the fifth (sixth? He’d lost count) pebble bounced off Remus’s window, a familiar face appeared on the other side. Even from the ground he could see Remus gaping incredulously. Sirius figured he and James must cut quite the peculiar picture— he knew he himself was grinning like a loon.

“There’s the man,” said James comfortably. 

“Quick, into position.” Sirius gestured in a flurry of hand movements James somehow deciphered, bless him thrice.

He planted his hands on the siding of the Lupin’s house, let Sirius clamber onto his shoulders. Sirius gave James’s hair a fond ruffle. “Thanks, mate. Torture commence.”

Remus pulled the window open with a wince at the sound, his amber eyes widening further as he took in Sirius, sitting on James’s shoulders and holding the windowsill, a shit-eating grin firmly planted on his face. 

Remus looked utterly floored, his lips parted slightly as he tried to form words. “I— what’s going— Siri...? You? How did you—”

He was wearing an oversized turquoise sleeping shirt with _bookmonger_ in white lettering across the chest. The neckline was stretched and faded, revealing a swathe of his pale shoulder and collarbone. His hair was mussed and, Sirius peered closer with a hint of concern, his eyes were red-rimmed like he’d been crying. 

Sirius was dying to wrap Remus up in his arms and vow to never let go of him again, but he was perched like some ridiculous bird on his best friend’s shoulders and holding onto his boyfriend’s window, which altogether wasn’t a position condoning hugging. 

It took Remus all of three seconds to recover and he gripped Sirius’s forearm. His fingers were feverishly warm. “What in the _bloody fuck_ are you doing here, Sirius?”

Sirius gave him his best winning smile, made wider by Remus’s  adorable  cursing. God, he was brilliant. “Hey cutie.”

Remus rolled his eyes exasperatedly, despite the pinking of his cheeks and small smile playing at the corner of his mouth. 

Sirius discarded flirtation and cupped Remus’s face with one hand, leaning his other elbow against the rim of Remus’s open window. He brushed his thumb over the curve of Remus’s cheekbone, aching to kiss the freckles there. 

“Are you okay there, love?” He asked softly. 

“Mm-hmm.” Remus leaned out of the window a few inches to look down, twining his and Sirius’s fingers together as he did so. “Hi James.”

“Hi Remus,” James chirped. “Great to hear your voice. By the way, I’ll have you know your boyfriend is a great heavy lump of a git. Ow, you dumbfuck! Bastard!”

“Shh,” Sirius shushed him, kicking his heel into James’s chest again for that little comment. He returned to Remus, squeezing his hand. 

Remus’s smile and eyes had dropped. He’d paled a few shades, his face flat as he stared, lips pressed tight, down at where he and Sirius’s hands were joined over the border of his window. 

Sirius went plummeting back into reality. There was a house between them. Remus was stuck in this house with a dubious family, alone.

“Remus,” Sirius said quietly, for the moment ignoring James shifting insistently beneath him (he’d buy him a record or something later, as a thank you) and tapping Remus’s jaw. “Hey, sweetheart, can you look at me?”

Remus went limp at Sirius’s words and soft endearment, dropping his head into Sirius’s cradled hands. He had to do a quick move-shift-catch-apologize-to-James-for-jostling maneuver, but Remus’s mouth was pressed in the juncture of his thumb and palm and he was breathing faintly into Sirius’s hand and it was  all  worth it,  anything  was. 

“Christ, Sirius,” Remus moaned, voice muffled by Sirius’s skin, “They took my fucking phone.”

“I’m glad I didn’t try to text you then,” Sirius said with forceful lightness. 

“Yeah,” Remus whispered. His voice caught like ragged wool on a nail, snared by the gnarled crown of thorns no doubt lining his throat.

Sirius stretched press a kiss to his rumpled curls, fierce fondness and protection mixing like twin fires in his chest. “I’ve got you, love. It’s okay.”

“I missed you,” Remus sighed, his lips moving against the flat of Sirius’s palm as he spoke. “Fucking god, I can’t believe you came to my _house.”_

“Of course I did,” Sirius hummed, threading the fingers of his unoccupied-by-Remus’s-face hand through the hair at the nape of Remus’s neck.

James coughed pointedly.

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Sorry, James. _We,”_ he emphasized with a smile specifically for Remus to make a face at, “Of course _we_ did.”

“Thank you,” James said haughtily.

Remus exhaled minutely, lifting his head to reveal tearstained cheeks. “I missed you a  hell  of a lot, and it’s only been two days.”

“I was worried when you weren’t at school on Friday,” Sirius whispered. 

Remus’s only reply was an assenting, unhappy groan. 

“Are you allowed out of the house?” Sirius asked hesitantly just as James made a throaty noise of exertion under him. 

“No,” Remus muttered. Sirius could read his frustration in the knit of his brows and tension around his mouth. He wanted to kiss it away. “They say I’ve ‘betrayed their trust’,” he quoted bitterly. “And they’d ‘like some time to process’. They wouldn’t give a shit if you were a girl, but...”

“I know,” Sirius cut in, blowing a soft puff of air onto Remus’s lips, already craned up from James’s shoulders as far as he could go, the lick of space between their lips just a hair too far. “I’m sorry. It’s fucking shitty.”

“Hm,” Remus agreed, unable to get words past his choked-up throat. 

Sirius cast his eyes over Remus’s tired face, drinking in the color of his honey-brown eyes, the faint splattering is freckles across his nose and cheeks, the soft curve of his lower lip, caught between his teeth. 

Something sharp snagged in his chest at the thought of leaving Remus here alone in his room in a house of people who didn’t accept him. He knew what it felt like, and there was little to rival it in terms of shittiness.

“Fill me in on everything,” he told Remus. “I have got to know where I’m leaving you, yeah?”

“I’m mostly just _mad_ at them,” Remus obeyed with a faint smile before he ducked his head. “It shouldn’t be this big of a deal, that I’m in a relationship, who gives a fuck their gender. But then it’s the way they found out...”

“Peter is a miserable little asshole,” James supplied helpfully.

The corner of Remus’s mouth twitched. “Thanks, James.”

“I live to serve.”

“Has anything not good happened?” Sirius asked searchingly.

“Just Dad’s special brand of passive-aggressive silence, nothing like... that.” Remus exhaled. “I didn’t tell them myself precisely because of how they’re reacting, it’s that simple,” he explained, frustrated, and Sirius made a low hum of agreement. His own parents had been stellar asses about it, really. 

“Never mind it’s my own thing to tell, never mind I was probably going to this year because I have _you,”_ Remus continued, in his own world of anger now, bowing his head to take a deep breath. “It’s just frustrating and stilted and _uncomfortable._ If they’d listen to me talk I think we’d get on firmer ground, but so far it’s not working.”

“You’re safe though?” Sirius checked. “You know the Potters’ house is open.”

Remus smiled tiredly. “Yeah. I’m good, Siri.”

“You _are_ basically under house arrest.”

“There’s that,” Remus acknowledged. “I think they’re under the impression I’m going to go out and have loads of unsafe underage sex with you if they let me out of their sight for even a millisecond.”

Sirius heard James choke in surprise, but he was too busy flitting kisses over every centimeter of Remus he could reach. “Cheeky bastard,” he said reverently. “You’re the best.”

“Mmph.”

“If you argue, next time I see you and we’re on the same level I will dropkick you.”

“Do you even know what that is?”

“Mm, no.”

“Duly noted,” Remus murmured.

Sirius’s lower back was beginning to make its dissatisfaction with this position known and he moved with a not-so-well-concealed wince. Remus zeroed in on it in a second.

“That cannot be in the same realm as comfortable.” His brow furrowed.

“Hm, I’m fine,” Sirius dismissed.

“Now my conscience is being loud,” Remus sighed. “Not much longer, okay? You need to sleep tonight. And preferably not wake up in pain tomorrow.”

From below, James’s voice went, “And most caring boyfriend award goes to...”

“Remus John Lupin,” Sirius finished. “I really,” he stated, tugging Remus down a little more to press his forehead against Remus’s and inhale the spicy-sweet cinnamony scent of the other boy, “ _Really_ don’t want to go—”

 _“But_ you kind of have to,” Remus interrupted, smiling a little sadly. “You have a house to somehow return to and a bed to be in. And James is strong, but not _that_ strong. Even heroes need breaks from holding up their mates to his boyfriend’s window at midnight.”

A muffled “Thanks, Remus,” came from the vicinity of Sirius’s knees. 

“I love you,” Sirius spoke before he could lose his nerve, and James, bless the man, just as he had been instructed so meticulously that afternoon, braced Sirius’s feet with his hands so that he could push him up _just far enough_ for a kiss. 

Remus anticipated this move and sealed their mouths together, lips desperately wanting, leaving the both of them panting and flushed when they broke apart. 

That was the end of James’s impressive endurance, and Remus barely got out an “I love you too” before Sirius and James wavered bravely and went toppling down, spilling out on the grass in a tangled heap of _oomph_ s and limbs. 

Remus hung out of his window, watching worriedly and darting glances back into his room every few seconds as if his parents would barge in, drawn by the sound of two teenage boys hitting the ground, not to mention the illicit boyfriend-having and kissing going on.

Sirius dusted off his knees and leapt to his feet. He jumped back to the house to hoist an arm high over his head, reaching for Remus.

Remus leaned out until their fingers brushed, just overlapping enough to squeeze fingertips together. Not nearly enough contact, but it would have to suffice. 

“It’s like Romeo and Juliet,” Sirius whisper-called up to him and Remus’s eyes shone with recognition. He looked like he was made of starlight.

“The balcony scene,” he returned. 

“Thought you’d appreciate that,” Sirius grinned, softening. “No one dies in our story though.”

“I do appreciate that.” Remus’s eyes were equally soft as he gazed down at Sirius. 

“I hate to interrupt this love scene,” came James’s voice from behind them, sounding regretful, “Because it’s lovely. But.”

“I know,” Sirius groaned, hearing Remus huff above him. 

“I’ll miss you.” Remus tapped the pads of Sirius’s fingers with his own. “But I’ll be fine. They’ll cool down and hopefully then I can talk some sense into them.”

Sirius rotated his hand, trying to maximize contact. “I’m so fucking sorry you were outed. Say the word and I _will_ k ill the rat.”

James scoffed from behind him, making his opinion of Peter known. “Little dick-headed bastard.”

“Please don’t cause him bodily harm,” Remus sighed faintly. 

Sirius acquiesced reluctantly. “Will you be at school Monday?”

“Ninety percent sure.”

“A  whole  day between now and then.”

“I know.”

James cleared his throat apologetically, helpfully adding, “And just so you know, at school, if anyone gives you trouble, Sirius and I are at your beck and call. We’ll make good bodyguards, just you try us.”

“Damn right we would.” Sirius stepped away, already missing Remus’s proximity. He felt phantom pressure at his fingertips. “I love you, Moony. Sleep well.”

“Sweet dreams, Sirius.” Remus’s voice lingered, hushed. He retreated into his room, carefully beginning to ease the window closed, not before saying “I love you too”, his quiet words arrowing straight through the chill night air and making their home in Sirius’s heart. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for making it to the end! this is barely proofread to be honest, but I hope it was an enjoyable little read!
> 
> also I really don’t headcanon Hope and Lyall as homophobic but it had to be done for this I’m sorry T-T


End file.
